Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Following
two critically acclaimed organ group outings, New York saxophonist-composer Dan
Pratt heads in a different direction on Hymn for the Happy Man, his fourth
recording overall and debut for his own Same Island Music imprint. "After
eight years, the organ group had a great run, and I found myself looking for
something new to do," explains the California native and longtime Brooklyn
resident. "So for this record I decided to go with the
piano-bass-drums-sax quartet instrumentation, which is so foundational to jazz.
It was one of those things that was staring me straight in the face and I
couldn't see it, but on reflection it was such clear choice. I'd never recorded
a quartet record, and to go in the direction I wanted to go, I felt I needed to
explore an instrumentation that is such an essential strand to jazz's
DNA."

Pratt
assembled his "dream team" of bassist Christian McBride, drummer
Gregory Hutchinson and pianist Mike Eckroth to help him realize seven
well-crafted originals and breathe new life into one well-chosen standard. The
saxophonist-composer, a member of McBride's big band, heaps high praise on his
stellar sidemen for this simpatico session. "McBride and Hutch are
incredibly open-minded and agile musicians. Christian is one of a kind. He has
a pulse that is really unimpeachable and super singular. There's nobody who
plays the bass like him. Add to that his warmth and positivity, and you have a
paragon of musicianship as well as humanity. With Greg, I didn't tell him
anything except for two or three words about the concept of a piece, and he
just gave me something different with every take. Often, it was hard to decide
on a take because everything he did was so incredibly compelling. The kind of
surprises that I got from Christian and Greg were so delightful; they were
things that I could never imagine explaining or asking for.

"And
I'm super happy with what Mike played," Pratt continues. "What he was
playing behind me felt like he really understood where I was going, what I was
playing, and the ideas behind the harmonies of my tunes. And the more
adventurous I was, the more into it he was. It's nice to know that I've got
that strong ear behind me so when I want to go in a freer direction he always
hears it, and he hears it in a melodic context, too."

The foursome
kicks off the program with the off-kilter, Monkish "Gross Blues,"
which has Hutchinson flowing freely over the bar line while McBride keeps
steady time with his inimitable groove. "I didn't tell Greg anything but
'Keep it loose and trashy,' and that's what he came up with," recalls
Pratt. Eckroth feeds the saxophonist dissonant voicings, nudging him
harmonically into some passionate, upper register wailing. McBride also
delivers a typically chops-laden solo on this urgent opener.

Pratt
affects a singing quality through the rich harmonic terrain of "New
Day," and for good reason. "I wrote it after I met the woman who is
now my wife, and I just felt this incredible elation," he explains.
"It's different than when you meet someone you're smitten with. It's a
feeling when you meet somebody and you realize that there is this life-partner
potential; a person who brings out the best in you, who inspires you to be the
best that you can be, and that inspiration happens by her being who she
is." Hutchinson's playing on this breezy, uplifting number is lively and
highly interactive. "He totally elevates the piece throughout the whole
thing," says Pratt. "What he's playing has this wonderful arc that
really fits the spirit of the tune."

Hutchinson's
sparse mallet work helps set the darkly delicate tone of "River,"
which is cast in the vein of such ruminative classics as Wayne Shorter's
"Fall" or Miles Davis' "Flamenco Sketches." As the composer
explains, "Most of my tunes can be sort of active, and I wanted to write
something that was more patient; a tune whose activity lived within its
patience. So I was thinking of the reflective nature of watching a river, not
really being in the flow of the river but rather reflecting on the river's flow
itself, that staid kind of strength but also fluidity."

The
effervescent "Warsaw" has Pratt switching to alto sax and burning a
blue streak over Hutchinson's highly-charged pulse as McBride's contrapuntal
lines add layers of intrigue. "Alto is very new for me," says Pratt,
who started on baritone saxophone in eighth grade before switching to tenor
later in high school. "I just got the alto not even a year before this
recording session and I was so enamored with the sound that I decided to record
a couple tunes with it. I just thought for range and timbre it provided
something a little different on this tune."

Pratt
returns to tenor for the loose second line vibe of "Junket" and the
moody, alluring "Riddle Me Rhumba" before pulling out the alto again
on the buoyant "Hymn for the Happy Man," a title which fits his own
personal philosophy. "It was written in tribute to the humanity that
chooses to strive toward deeper happiness; not circumstantial happiness but
happiness from within," he explains. "It's to celebrate espousing
happiness and a forward-thinking kind of mentality and spirit."

The
collection closes with Pratt's unique interpretation of the Kurt Weill-penned
jazz standard "Speak Low," which incorporates some clever rhythmic
devices to break things up in intriguing ways. "I realized that I'm
increasingly interested in playing with space and form, and I want to carry
that same sense of joy and play in the music that I write through my
arrangements as well," he explains. "So this arrangement is an
example of that kind of playfulness. It starts out like any other standard
arrangement of 'Speak Low' in a count-it-off-at-a-jam-session kind of way, but
there's a lot of very specific and subtle treatments done to the form and chord
progression that just basically open up places where you wouldn't necessarily
normally have them opened up. I'm really just looking for opportunities for the
unexpected to occur."

Those kinds
of surprises are prevalent throughout Hymn for the Happy Man, which stands as
Pratt's most ambitious and fully-realized recording to date.